__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

How does Bitcoin handle money leaving the system? If there is only n values, then a single lost or destroyed coin doesn't this have a ripple effect on the entire system?

Digital is a dangerous place, considering how easy it is to get a virus for the novice user (and even a lot of power users) not to mention software vulnerabilities the end user can't control (ala the Java fiasco) what steps need to be taken to secure bitcoin? Are they novice friendly? Not that my Grandmother would ever adopt bitcoin but if she did is she going to lose it to the first trojan that comes along?

With no real governing authority how can you spend your money with reasonable expectation that you'll get delivery? It seems that a merchant would have a hell of a time building a trust relationship to the point people feel safe directly handling their money. Currently Visa/Mastercard/Paypal and so on act as buffers protecting your money. If the merchant doesn't follow through with a transaction they can intervene and get your money back. How does this work with Bitcoin? You mentioned a Bitcoin based credit card... maybe that's the starting point, is there a time frame when this might become a non-issue? A guesstimate is fine, I just don't know how long it takes for an economy to catch up to where it is competitive with the existing systems.

EDIT: More questions, sorry.

It looks like there is a cabal of developers (anonymous?) who continually update the standard. How are those developers vetted? For example: do they have any background in economics, for example, to understand what the ramifications of their changes are? Or are they just some smart Computer Science dudes who got together to get the system up and running? Being able to change the standard seems suspicious to me and, IMO, leaves the system open to the kind of corruption fiat currency has that digital currencies are trying to avoid. What safeguards are in-place to make sure I don't wake up one morning to find out they've decided to expand beyond their 21 million increments and tanked my value?

The value of a single coin is adjusted. I posted a link earlier, check it out.

@Mazzicc: A lot of banks have those same problems. BitCoin doesn't claim to be immune to theft, or negative associations. It's a decentralized and easily transferable currency. That's it.

When my bank is robbed, it has insurance to reimburse me. When my bitcoin exchange is hacked, goodbye untraceable money.

I'm not saying don't use it, I'm saying there are risks to be aware of. A lot of people are using it like a stock exchange, and not as a currency, so the value is pretty volatile as well. Glad to see the few coins I mined with a collective a few years ago are worth something, but I'll likely never pay for any.

It's not up there this morning, but if I'm reading the page right ("Most recently mined blocks in the bitcoin block chain") then people are still minting thousands of dollars.

One of them yesterday was $79,000 worth.

It doesn't work that way. Block rewards are standard. Right now they are 25 coins--~$625. The reward will halve once 2016 blocks have been discovered, typically in about 4 months. Either you've got the context off or... well that's all it could be really, which is why I wanted to see the link.

By the way, the price has gone up another dollar today, it's nuts. This is another one of those historic moments in the currency's life, where this is either a huge sustained price gain because of the currency uncertainties around the world, or another bubble getting ready to pop.

Hopefully the latter, as I would love to mop up a ton of coins on the cheap

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

Reddit now accepts Bitcoin for buying Reddit gold, price has shot over 27 now >_>

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

Turns out I won't need to. I was watching Enterprise last night and it reminded me that within the next 100 years or so we'll be a money-free utopia so I just have to hold out medically (thanks Obama!) and be comforted that everything will work out in the 22nd century.

Turns out I won't need to. I was watching Enterprise last night and it reminded me that within the next 100 years or so we'll be a money-free utopia so I just have to hold out medically (thanks Obama!) and be comforted that everything will work out in the 22nd century.

Can you give me happy pills that will also include a banging wife without being rich or handsome? A job I love handed to me and me not dying? lol.

Turns out I won't need to. I was watching Enterprise last night and it reminded me that within the next 100 years or so we'll be a money-free utopia so I just have to hold out medically (thanks Obama!) and be comforted that everything will work out in the 22nd century.

Heh i don't get why some people think going moneyless could in anyway be better. Money is a technology. It would be like saying let's create a utopia where there's no computers, or fire. Yeah. that's real progress, really :P

__________________Choose your government: the majority ruling the minority, the minority ruling the majority, or everyone ruling themselves long as they do not initiate force, fraud, or theft against one another.

I've known about Bitcoin for well over a year, and have used it a handful of times. I see it gaining traction on the web. I'm big into the Libertarian movement, and saw this Bitcoin ATM at the Liberty Forum in N.H.